Another First Kiss

I imagine the first kiss of mankind to be a savage and terrible thing. Some Neanderthal, or other primitive human ancestor — let’s call him Garg — finds himself overcome with a strange new elation for which he has no name. Garg knows not what it means, nor how to express it, but the feeling is akin to desire, to a kind of hunger. Still, not quite the same. Nor is it the urge he has felt for reproduction, a raw, sometimes violent, albeit necessary desire that serves the betterment of the tribe.

No, this was something different, somewhere between the two. He identifies the source of the emotion: Nrgn, the daughter of the tribal chief. She crouches there naked in the shadows of the cave, and the light from the fire dances like a bug across her skin, highlighting her…desirables, then hiding them away in the darkness once again.

Garg lunges towards her, compelled by this new sensation which he cannot articulate. And so his instincts drive him back to his basest desire: food. He opens his mouth, saliva forming webs between his jaws, and prepares to clamp down on his prey. But at the last moment, he realizes: “Nrgn not prey. Nrgn nice.” Unable to halt his momentum, he slows instead his bite. Nrgn turns in the director of her assailant and lets out a cry that is quickly silenced by Garg’s mouth, softly falling on her own. The tingly sensations of their lubricated lips rubbing nerve endings together excites Garg, but also surprises and consequently frightens the beautiful young Nrgn, who takes Garg’s personal expression of sentiment towards as an unwarranted attack, and drives her sharp, bony knee into his groin and biting back at her attacker’s mouth.

This two-pronged agony sent Garg writhing to the ground, thrashing his flesh against the rocky dirtfloor cave in hopes of some deflecting or refocusing this new pain. It was physical, yes, but Garg had been hurt in battle many times before. So had his pride been wounded as well. But those feelings were but kindling on the fire of affliction that seared his being.

And so with mankind’s first kiss came its first case of heartbreak as well.